Hawking Index

proper noun

A humorous measure of how far people will, on average, read through a particular book before giving up.

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Meanings

proper nounthe Hawking Index
  1. A humorous measure of how far people will, on average, read through a particular book before giving up.

    The mathematician Ellenberg has developed the Hawking Index, but according to his own statements only for entertainment and not for scientific purposes.

    2024, Jan Krone, Tassilo Pellegrini, editors, Handbook of Media and Communication Economics: A European Perspective, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 703

Origin

Invented by American mathematician Jordan Ellenberg in 2014, and named after English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, whose book A Brief History of Time (1988) has been called “the most unread book of all time”.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Hawking Index. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hawking%20Index

MLA

“Hawking Index.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hawking%20Index. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Hawking Index,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Hawking%20Index.

Source: Hawking Index on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.